The Saddam Oil Vouchers Affair (Details)

MEMRI.org ^ | February 20, 2003 | Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli

[Shermy]

January 28 thread:

The Beneficiaries of Saddam's Oil Vouchers: The List of 270

[Shermy]

Ping.

[cripplecreek]

And nary a word from the American media.

[nuconvert]

My, weren't the Russians busy?

"Russia, which received the greatest number of oil vouchers, has said nothing."

And as forthright as ever.

[Shermy]

There's all sorts of interesting ones here, easiest to pick is the Scott Ritter connection.

For Switzerland there is "Glencore" - to whom CLinton pardongate figure Marc Rich is or was connected.

Father Benjamin among other things, arranged that distasteful meeting between the Pope and Tariq Aziz.

Then there's UK MP George Galloway, the nephew-in-law of Yassir Arafat.

[cyncooper]

Thanks for the ping, Shermy.

Listen, I heard Greg Palkot on Fox the other day. He was in Paris and he was talking about "recently discovered" documents about oil contracts. I am pretty sure he was talking about this story we've been following. I didn't see a written report and not a word again, either from Palkot or any other reporter on Fox.

Still, I thought it significant that he was reporting this, and from Paris, no less. I hope he's on the trail.

[Just mythoughts]

Wonder if this is what President Bush showed Mr. PUTin after the Camp David visit.

PUTin came out and announced that he was in talks with some to stop the US in removing the terrorists in Afghanistan.

No one asked who he was in talks with.

The Russian have been busy building missiles ever since.

[Shermy]

Here's a January 29 article from Le Monde about Maugein, etc.

Before the War, the Sale of Iraqi Oil Enriched a Multitude of Intermediaries (Le Monde)

A shocking name is under "Panama" - Sevan, the chief of the Oil for Food program.

...In describing what it called "the curse of the Iraqi vouchers," the London Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat said that it expects more names and details to be made public in the near future and anticipates the revelation of a scandal of vast dimensions transcending countries and continents, implicating many prominent individuals and organizations. [6]..."

I hope so...

[Robert A Cook PE]

"We must get more proof" ... said Kerry's national press corpse...

Besides, all of this has been denied. It must not be true.

France, Russia, and the UN would "never" have stolen Iraq oil money for "profit" ... would they?

[TexasTransplant]

No Bias in our Media, none.
However, I could not tell you what TV reports, I quit watching them years ago, I do not buy a Paper But... I can tell you that the propaganda that comes on every 15 minutes on Radio has yet to blame it all on President Bush. (They will get to it soon I'm sure)

[GailA]

btt

[festus]

;Algeria 1. Abd Al-Majid Al-Attar 6 million 2. Abd Al-Qadr
;bin Mussa 6 million

Wow if you are ever playing wheel of fortune in Algeria and the clue is Person and you want to buy a vowel. Buy an A...............

[VA40]

the trust account where the oil revenues were kept, at a French bank, at Iraq's insistence

Billions were yanked from the US economy, I believe in October 2000, and sent to France at "Saddam's" insistence. I could never believe a bigger deal was never made over it.

[PureSolace]

Check out this thread. Some speculate that maybe one of Clinton's last minute pardon-ees were in the list from a Swiss acount? Follow the paper trail. information for the masses! I hope our government really preasures these people and governments who let this go on... :)

[PureSolace]

Tacis stated the following in a past thread...

It is not in the left wing media because of a hypothesis I posed yesterday. When this list was posted, I said that I couldn't believe that, given his corrupt nature, Willie Clinton wasn't on the list. A voucher the size of a sheet of paper worth a million barrels of oil at, what?, $15 a barrel, would explain a lot about Willie and his crimes/treason. It would explain Vince Foster's trips to Switzerland and his murder, why Suzie went to prison, why Jim McDougal was murdered in a federal prison, and so on.

A sharp poster responded that the original listing for Switzerland showed a "Glenco Re" (I assumed it was an insurance company) as a beneficiary. He observed that it probably was "Glencore," an outfit owned (?) by Marc Rich, the same guy who bought a pardon from Willie on the last and who probably will never again step foot in the US.

Thus, the reason it hasn't been mentioned in most of the left wing media is that it points at Willie and they want nothing that doesn't point at Bush. A lesser reason is, of course, is that there is an oil scandal and Halliburton isn't mentioned.

[Fedora]

> Then there's UK MP George Galloway, the nephew-in-law of Yassir Arafat.

Didn't know Galloway was related to him--that certainly sheds some light.

So beyond the individual names mentioned here, is there any pattern connecting the names together?--specifically one connecting Saddam's bribes to the EU left and the former Soviet bloc to Saddam's US allies like ANSWER, Ritter, McDermott, etc.? My theory is that the US bribes were somehow being funneled through the more obvious lefties to the more "mainstream" ones, in order to give the Democratic opponents of the war in the House and Senate (notably Ted Kennedy) a cover of plausible deniability in case the Galloway/McDermott types got caught. I'm especially wondering if Valerie Plame, Joseph Wilson, John Kerry, and/or Ted Kennedy had any connections to anyone mentioned in this article.

[Fedora]

Upon rereading I see I worded my post somewhat clumsily, so let me clarify one point I was trying to make: I know Ritter was mentioned in the article, I'm just wondering if there's some pattern connecting the bribes to him with the bribes to others, which might help indicate the channels through which the money flowed. Seems to me like the UN had to be one of the central conduits, but there were undoubtedly others.

[AmericanVictory]

Our favorite is the very high up French guy at the UN. Gee, we're sure that didn't influence their behavior there.

[piasa]

fyi

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!